


All My Eternities Come Back To You

by AmunetMana



Series: A Different Path [3]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (not genuine), Dreams and Nightmares, Foreplay, Introspection, M/M, Nightmares involving non-con, Rough Foreplay, Threats of Violence, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 22:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmunetMana/pseuds/AmunetMana
Summary: Somewhere between sleep and waking, there is a place where Bucky is safe. Cocooned in Wakandan luxury and the love of a King, he dreams of his past, present and future.But ice still lines his veins, and there are secrets he still cradles which may yet spell the difference between his deliverance or the destruction of all he has gained.





	All My Eternities Come Back To You

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ReluctantRavenclaw for reading this over for me!

I.

 

_Sometimes, there are good dreams._

_Bucky dreams of T’Challa – of being pinned down by his king, helpless beneath him. Bucky is as welcoming of T’Challa’s teeth and claws as he is of T’Challa’s gentle touches and kisses. There are sharp touches across his skin, pin-pricks over his heart that make him arch and gasp. Bucky throws his head back, chest pressed up against T’Challa’s as his king consumes him completely. He scrambles to wrap his single arm around T’Challa’s back, but finds better purchase when he hooks his long legs around T’Challa’s waist._

_(There is nothing but the two of them in the world in these dreams. They are in a wide, endless voice, with no barriers between them but their own skin.)_

_Sometimes, in these dreams, Bucky has two arms. He reaches out with one to curl his fingers in T’Challa’s hair, and traces his face with the other. He learns T’Challa’s features slowly and carefully, committing them to memory. As many times as he can – as many times as it takes to make them stay._

_(God, please let them stay.)_

 

~

 

Bucky woke slowly, sighing as he shifted under the sheets. His eyes found T’Challa’s form easily, as his King lay beside him on the large bed. Bucky shuffled around before reaching out with his single hand, resting it softly atop T’Challa’s soft hair, just behind the delicate curve of one ear. He swept his fingers down until he reached T’Challa’s bare neck, pressing carefully against his steady pulse. T’Challa was awake by then, of course. He’s the Black Panther, and that means everything in Wakanda.

 

( _Would mean everything to Bucky no matter where they were_.)

 

This morning, T’Challa pretends to stay sleeping, which is nice. Bucky shuffled along as best he could under the sheets, and pressed himself close against T’Challa’s back until it was nothing but warmth between them. Sometimes, doing so is almost enough to drive the chill from Bucky’s heart. Either way, he’s left aching. The pretence was sadly short lived, as T’Challa rolled over into Bucky’s adjusted touch, catching the pale hand and pressing it against his cheek. T’Challa smiled, effortlessly confident as he always was. No – _self-assured_. There was a difference, Bucky thought. T’Challa’s was a quiet sort of strength, held back until absolutely necessary. It could be seen in every curve and nuance of his face, even so soon after waking.

 

Bucky had seen himself in mirrors far too often to know that whether first thing in the morning or in the middle of the day, he always looked tired. At least he could get away with it a little more in the mornings.

 

“My love,” T’Challa greeted Bucky, his tone low and warm. Slowly, carefully, he turned his head inwards to Bucky’s palm until his lips pressed against the pale skin there. Bucky shivered, and for once the chill wasn’t coming from inside his own chest.

 

“My King,” Bucky mumbled, eyes dropping slightly. Not so much that he missed T’Challa’s grin widening. His King pushed forward to press a generous kiss to Bucky’s mouth, before he gently pulled away to climb out of bed and prepare for the day. Bucky was able to stay behind, reclining amongst the sheets and pillows, watching T’Challa get ready. _My King_. Bucky remembered his first day in the labs, when T’Challa had taken him down to meet his sister Shuri and get a first idea of what HYDRA and the Red Room still had left infecting his mind. T’Challa scoffed at Shuri whenever she tried to call him _King_ – and her returning laughter made the title sound equally silly between them.

 

T’Challa had never once told Bucky to stop calling him _My King_. It was not a requirement between them; if Bucky wanted to call him T’Challa, he knew there wouldn’t be any penalties or repercussions. But it had become a ritual of kinds between them – and if there was one thing Bucky still craved, it was continuity and routine in his life. Certainty, something absolute…something that could anchor him.

 

( _Besides. My King is every bit as possessive as it is reverent, between them_.)

 

“Bucky?”

 

Bucky’s mind was dragged back to the present at the sound of his name, and he blinked tiredly at T’Challa before sliding himself reluctantly from the sheets. T’Challa watched him openly, appreciative.

 

“I do not mind if you wish to stay in bed,” T’Challa said mildly, eyes running casually over the long length of Bucky’s body. He looked pleased at the expanse of bare skin. “Do you need help dressing?”

 

Bucky didn’t really need help. He’d been practising since coming to Wakanda, but help meant being touched, and he was exceedingly bad at saying no to touches from T’Challa.

 

“Please,” he said, standing from the bed to find something to put on. T’Challa helps him with the long, draping fabric that Bucky had come to enjoy wearing during his time in Wakanda. They secured cloth around Bucky’s stump, before T’Challa maneuvered them both in front of a long mirror. No matter how long he was there, Bucky was always, _always_ aware that he was a stranger in Wakanda. No matter what he did, or how hard he tried, he would always remain displaced and unable to fully belong. But, Wakanda meant protection, and T’Challa, and Bucky relished the clothes on his back, no matter how much they revealed how he didn’t belong.

 

T’Challa must have seen something in his eyes, because his hands came to rest on Bucky’s shoulders in a strong and steady gesture.

 

“You can stay here if you wish,” T’Challa reminded him. He only reminded Bucky on his bad days, and he was somehow always much quicker to pick up on which would be the bad days than Bucky was. Bucky sighed, shifting his hand to rest over T’Challa’s, their fingers interlacing slightly.

 

“I know,” Bucky said quietly. “I’m due to see Shuri and the doctors down in the lab today.”

 

 T’Challa watched him a moment longer, before he pulled Bucky’s hair back over his shoulder and kissed his cheek gently. Bucky sighed, and wished that he could somehow be more than a flurry of snowflakes fading fast in the heat.

 

The waking world was not a kind place to Bucky, those days. _Those days_ being, of course, a euphemism for _every single days since he’d fallen from the train_. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if he was still trying to face it without T’Challa by his side – still on the run, still struggling to maintain his books and catch his ailing memories before they slipped away from him again. Bucky parted ways with T’Challa, the latter heading for the throne room whilst Bucky continued on to the labs.

 

Thus began the flood of tests and checks, scans of his brain projected up, and holograms showing his vitals alongside the flow of energy and signals throughout his body. They all looked normal. None of the signals were artificial, all supposed to be there. All doing what they were supposed to be doing. And yet, Bucky still isn’t _right_ , and it was clear that the scientists and doctors working on his case couldn’t fathom what was going wrong. Shuri stared at the data as though it was offending her personally, glaring as though she could burn through the holograms with thought alone. She probably had an invention in the works to allow her to do just that, Bucky thought, watching silently.

 

Bucky didn’t have the heart to tell them that it wasn’t their fault that he wasn’t fixed. Or more accurately, didn’t have the courage. He wasn’t sure if T’Challa had realised yet or not – they didn’t have secrets, but neither had they broached the subject. T’Challa knew him before he came to Wakanda too, before Bucky was safe and no longer had any cause to fight. He deserves to hear Bucky admit it out loud, Bucky _knows_. For his own sake, Bucky should find the words to tell the scientists – tell _Shuri_ – what he had guessed, and what he knew of his own condition. Beyond the trigger words, and beyond the damage from being put into cryo and being shocked straight through the skull over and over.

 

But Bucky didn’t say anything, and instead watched as the hours passed him by, wandering the Wakandan countryside idly until the sun lowered, and he returned to the palace to run and throw himself at a finally-free T’Challa. He even managed a laugh when T’Challa caught him in a spin, holding Bucky as he steadied them both, keeping the former weapon tugged close. They had their dinner sat on a balcony, overlooking the city in companionable silence. The sun set, glorious over the horizon, and the two of them finally retreated back to their room to undress and climb into bed.

 

Bucky and T’Challa shared strange moments together, between waking and sleep. Amidst the very first and very last rays of sunlight that tinted the star-scattered sky, they huddled together night after night, morning after morning – as though the blankets over them could offer protection from monsters, and as though they have no responsibilities in the world beyond what they choose to owe to each other. They drifted in and out of sleep like that, watching each other’s features get smoothed out by sleep. There weren’t so many barriers, in those moments, and sometimes Bucky thought he could see the strains that ran through T’Challa too. He is King to more than just Bucky, and a King has worries and pressures that Bucky cannot understand. Worries and pressures from a part of T’Challa’s world that Bucky does not and _cannot_ occupy.

 

Bucky wished there was something he could do to help T’Challa. Absolutely anything to even begin evening out the enormous debt he owes – anything to help shelter T’Challa from the storms of the world. Surely, even in Wakanda, there was some use for a weapon like him.

 

Bucky and T’Challa’s fingers linked together, as they both slid into unconsciousness.

 

~

 

Bucky is happy in Wakanda; Bucky is safe.

 

_But –_

_But._

_Sometimes, there are bad dreams._

_Sometimes it’s the Winter Soldier who dreams of T’Challa. There is no reverence there, no room for love or awe amongst mission parameters and the ever pounding, desperate need need need to comply, to complete, to finish the mission. There is nothing but brutality there, as the Solider forces T’Challa down hard, metal arm crushing against T’Challa’s skin. The Soldier pushes him down onto metal tables, the kind that normally carry any number of tools usually used to hurt-help-hurt-HURT the Soldier. He thinks that T’Challa will hurt him. Because T’Challa burns, and the Soldier was born in Winter. There is a reason he is kept frozen, and he cannot be thawed out – not for anything._

_The King of Wakanda has to die. The Soldier’s grip tightens, only for him to rear back in shock as warm hands move to cup his face. They press into his cheeks like sun searing against ice and frozen metal, and the Soldier wants to scream and tear and rend – but T’Challa is looking up at him. Looking up at the Soldier half on top of him, and there is no fear in his eyes._

_There isn’t even rage, for the weapon he once thought killed his father. Who has killed more than enough fathers to warrant as much hatred as any one man can muster. Instead, T’Challa’s eyes are filled with sorrow, and his fingers are tender as they sweep across the Soldier’s cheeks, gathering melted snow on their tips._

_(The Soldier will crumble here, he thinks, and he is scared. Assets should not be scared – weapons_ cannot _be scared.)_

_But with nothing but gentle touches, this man shall undo him piece by piece; he shall unravel the soldier and crack him open to reveal that fragile, soft core that must be protected above everything. The Soldier cannot protect if he is_ gone _, and panic wells within him. There is no certainty, and without him there is no guard. Everyone is a betrayer, and everyone leaves in the end, but the Soldier_ cannot be one of them _. The Soldier cannot fail this mission._

_Hands are still on his face, and the melted snow that’s gathered there is mixed with tears. The Soldier falls back, down to his knees on the ground as he slides away from the touch, trembling. T’Challa follows after him, and straddles the asset’s waist with ease, bringing their mouths together as his hands return to cradle the asset’s face._

_(Mismatched hands move to grip T’Challa’s wrists, as the Soldier cannot tell if he means to remove his touch, or try and keep it there forever.)_

 

~

 

Bucky woke sucking in a hard, choking breath, clenching the fist he no longer had. His whole balance was thrown off, desperately unable to account for the lack of a second arm as he failed to reorient himself and remember exactly where he was. Slipping and flopping down onto the bed, Bucky let out a frustrated yell, his face wet with tears. He forced himself still, pressed down against the mattress, but his body was shaking like he was still frozen.

 

“Bucky?” T’Challa called from beside him, easily woken by the noise and movement. Bucky found himself unable to reply; his throat felt like it had been stoppered.

 

“My love?” Was T’Challa’s next entreat, not tentative but cautious. Bucky shuddered at the words, as something of his dream came back to him and left his shivering worse than before. Desperate, Bucky tilted his head towards T’Challa, and his King took the invitation for what it was. T’Challa climbed on top of Bucky, pinning him firmly between his spread legs, before moving to hold Bucky’s hand above his head. Still half in the dream-nightmare-dream, Bucky couldn’t quite fathom his missing arm, and strained without it, struggling under T’Challa’s touch restlessly. T’Challa’s second hand moved to settle at Bucky’s hip, sure and grounding, and at last Bucky found himself beginning to go pliant. But the details of the dream, the pressure, the _intent_ , still haunted him, and his fingers clenched.

 

“My _love_ ,” T’Challa murmured again, and rocked his hips hard against Bucky’s groin. Bucky jolted hard, a noise escaping his throat. “My love, think of me. Focus on me.”

 

 _Think only of you._ Their old refrain from that first real meeting – the first time they’d been together, in every sense of the world. A sentiment and a mantra that had kept Bucky all through their – _his_ – escape from Europe, and journey to sanctuary in Wakanda. _Think only of T’Challa_.

But he _was_ thinking of T’Challa, Bucky thought helplessly. That was the problem. The ghost of the Winter Soldier, that no science had been able to exorcise, had saturated himself in all thoughts of T’Challa, all memories and flush of feelings. _Weapons don’t know how to love. Do I love you?_ Bucky thought, desperately staring up at T’Challa. _Can I love you if I’m just a weapon_?

 

T’Challa rocked his hips again, and Bucky was pulled sharply from his thoughts with a whimper, shocked back into the present with eyes blown wide. His King was watching him carefully, his own eyes dark but by no means consumed. There was purpose to T’Challa’s actions.

 

“A nightmare?” T’Challa asked, quietly, and Bucky was able to nod at last. T’Challa hummed, and slowly evened out his pace. Bucky squirmed, but the motion wasn’t nearly so frantic anymore.

 

“What was it about?” T’Challa murmured, and bent to kiss Bucky’s cheek, just by his ear. “About you?” his breath tickled Bucky’s ear, and Bucky shivered. “Me?”

 

Bucky’s eyes squeezed shut. “Both,” he managed. _I was the Soldier, and you were powerless, and you still brought me to my knees._ “Both.”

 

T’Challa hummed, and kissed Bucky again, slowly, along the line of his jaw.

 

“You’re safe here,” T’Challa promised, and Bucky wanted to cringe under his touch.

 

“Are you?” he whispered, and T’Challa’s lips paused at the corner of Bucky’s mouth. Bucky felt their absence sharply when T’Challa pulled back, to meet Bucky’s eyes carefully. He let go of Bucky’s wrist, and his waist. Bucky watched T’Challa raise both his hands, palms up as he sat back on his haunches.

 

“You tell me,” he told Bucky carefully, the picture of reticence. Bucky’s breath caught in his throat.

 

He was still shaky, but he jerked his leg up, knocking T’Challa to the side. They rolled, Bucky shoving T’Challa down and straddling T’Challa in an inverse of their former position. Except that Bucky stumbled again without his other arm, and flushed red. He hadn’t been this sloppy without it since his first week in Wakanda. T’Challa watched him but didn’t comment. Bucky breathed in deeply and tried to ignore the red in his face. His mind in the dream, Bucky reached for T’Challa’s wrist slowly, dragging his hand to Bucky’s face, pressing it against his own cheek. The heat was no less intense, and Bucky bent to crush his lips against T’Challa’s, biting and deepening the kiss like he could consume T’Challa that way.

 

( _Kissing T’Challa the way the Winter Soldier would kiss him, if only he knew how._ )

 

( _If only there really was a place for a weapon like the Winter Soldier here_.)

 

~

 

T’Challa told Bucky, a little dryly after they continued to kiss and rub against each other until the sun was fully risen, that he thought they were probably safe. Bucky had still held on to T’Challa’s wrist like a shy, needy child, hampering his ability to dress as he remained naked himself. T’Challa hadn’t protested, but he hadn’t looked Bucky up and down with his usual appreciation of such a sight either. Didn’t remind him he could stay in the room if he needed to.

 

Bucky didn’t plan on staying anyway.

 

Shuri, for all her skills in seemingly every scientific field, was not a therapist. But when Bucky arrived in her lab, quiet and remorseful and not scheduled to be there, she was ready and willing to listen to him. She dragged him out of the lab, taking him to a secluded spot for tea. She even slid a plateful of sweets his way, taking several of them in one hand to munch as she waited for him to speak. Bucky took one, fully intending to eat it, but ending up unable to do anything but fiddle with it as he choked over his words instead.

 

“I know why the treatments haven’t been working,” Bucky admitted, not quite able to meet Shuri’s eyes. “I mean – the treatments did work. They all worked. The reason why the scans come back clear is because they _worked_. HYDRA is gone, the Red Room’s gone, and my mind is…” Bucky swallowed. He felt like he was confessing to some terrible crime. It wasn’t supposed to be a sin, to be yourself, but what Bucky was…

 

Shuri studied Bucky in his silence, quietly compassionate. Bucky was surprised she hadn’t shown more of a reaction to the fact that he’d been wasting her time and everyone else’s, but she was collected and poised as she waited for him to finish what he was trying to say. It was a far cry from how she behaved with T’Challa – when she was all sunshine and loudness and joy. A far cry from how she was with Bucky on one of his good days, when a little of that sunshine was cast directly on him.

 

( _Bucky’s stalling, even in his own mind_.)

 

“HYDRA and the Red Room are gone,” Bucky repeated, “but the _Winter Soldier_ is still here.” Ice crystallised in his chest, a physical presence of the Soldier, clenched around his heart and freezing. Even in the warmth of the tea house, Bucky shuddered with the sudden chill, hunching over as goosebumps raced up his arms. Shuri reached out a hand for him, touching his arm with her warm, dry palm. Bucky shook his head, eyes tightly shut. “The Solder is still here, Shuri, and – and I don’t think he’s ever going to go, because I think that’s just who I am now.”

 

Tears pricked horribly at his eyes, banks of melted snow and slush that threatened to turn from trickles to gushes in a moment, and Shuri began speaking at last. But she didn’t offer any responses to his confessions, neither damnations or reassurances. Just low, calming words, that didn’t require any focus from Bucky, but instead served to sooth and ground, and reign back the blizzards still crashing inside Bucky’s chest.

 

_You’re safe. You’re in Wakanda. You’re with friends. They can’t get you here._

 

 _But I’m already here_ , Bucky thought helplessly. Already here, and already waking from the void that existed when he _didn’t_ dream, with the words _ready to comply_ on his lips. Fear crowded in on Bucky’s mind, even out with Shuri, and he is only distantly aware of her hand still on his arm, as she talks quietly and frantically. It wasn’t until later, when warm arms closed around him, and Bucky was being _picked up_ and carried by T’Challa. T’Challa was still dressed like a King, and Bucky realised he’d come directly from his meetings.

 

“No,” Bucky moaned, curling to hide against T’Challa with a crimson face, cheeks still wet with tears. “No, you’re busy.” The elders already didn’t like him, considering Bucky an outsider (he was) and dangerous (even with one arm, probably true) and a near-shameful distraction that T’Challa indulged too much (always). Bucky couldn’t fault them on any accusation.

 

“Hush,” T’Challa said, fondly. “This is important.” Bucky disagreed, but didn’t say anything, letting himself be carried outside, and taken back to the palace.

 

“I’m pathetic,” Bucky muttered, when they were back in their room, and T’Challa was tapping at his kimoyo beads making arrangements for how the council should proceed in his absence. “I shouldn’t need you like this. I shouldn’t be dragging you away from _being King_ because I can’t even handle talking to Shuri over _tea_.”

 

“It was a boring meeting anyway,” T’Challa said mildly, attempting to lighten the mood. Bucky scoffed, and wished he could cross his arms over his chest. As it was, he was forced to settle on wrapping his single arm around himself, tucking his hand against his opposing hip.

 

“…Did Shuri tell you what I said?” Bucky asked finally, unable to meet T’Challa’s eyes. He heard T’Challa sigh, and his eyes closed as a pained expression crossed his face.

 

“She told me, yes,” T’Challa admitted. Something dangerously close to a sneer worked its way across Bucky’s face.

 

“And you’re just – we’re just going to what, continue? Do we ignore it? Pretend it’ll go away?” _Pretend we can go to bed and you can hold me and pretend that ignoring the waking world will fix anything_? It wasn’t even one of Bucky’s bad days. On his bad days, he was _truly_ lethargic, desensitised and dead, not even cold in his bones as his mind refused to connect with reality.

 

Bucky was just angry now. Maybe admitting the soldier was still there, still so much a part of him, had broken down the floodgates. Bucky flexed his fingers, and for once wished he had the new arm Shuri had made for him. Not to harm. Despite the anger, despite the soldier, Bucky didn’t want to hurt anyone. But he did want to feel goddamn capable of coping by himself. There were still tears on his face, and Bucky marvelled at how fast his moods had spun. He looked to T’Challa from where he’d been moving restlessly, processing the slew of data his brain had spat out.

 

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Bucky asked, and something of a quaver danced around the edge of his words. T’Challa was still studying him.

 

“it did not look like you would listen if I did,” he said, and the light-hearted affectation to his words was gone. Something in Bucky flared – here was a T’Challa taking him seriously. “I do not know what you need, Bucky,” T’Challa said, stepping forward, and Bucky wondered what he would do if T’Challa called him _my love_ now, “I do not know what to do to help you, or which actions would hinder you. But know this, James Buchanan Barnes. You are loved, here, for every part of yourself that you care to reveal.”

 

Bucky stared. T’Challa stared back, and Bucky couldn’t find the lie in his eyes. Bucky stepped forward, and T’Challa took one to the side – the continued in a circling motion until Bucky was positioned between T’Challa and the door. His chest heaved, faintly.

 

“I dreamt of you,” Bucky told T’Challa, chin tilting up. “I dreamt I was the soldier – _only_ the soldier, not whatever it is I am now.” _Soldier and Bucky and your love_. “Do you want to know what I did to you, in that dream?”

 

“I don’t know,” T’Challa replied, posture shifting into something Bucky hadn’t seen before; it was not the stance of someone about to take him apart piece by piece. Not the stance of the King whose orders he obeyed unconditionally and with pleasure. This was a stance of anticipation. Of _invitation_. Bucky’s heart quickened, and he shifted on his feet, eyes going dark. “I don’t know, my love,” T’Challa repeated, tilting his head as Bucky stayed silent. “Is it something I want to know?” he took a step towards Bucky, and his own gaze went dark. “Or is it something I want you to _show me_.”

 

Bucky took the invitation, taking long steps across the room to shove at T’Challa with his one arm until he fell back onto the bed. Bucky wasted no time in climbing on top of him, straddling T’Challa’s waist, staring down greedily. There was a glint in T’Challa’s gaze, and Bucky grinned at the sight.

 

“I dreamt you’d destroy me,” Buck breathed, bending and biting down hard on T’Challa’s earlobe, moving down to bite and suck his way down T’Challa’s neck, as T’Challa began to respond, with tight, breathy noises. Bucky felt a rush of _something_ in him at the sensation of the King writhing beneath _him_ for once. “I dreamt that you’d melt me into what I was becoming here.” Bucky delivered an especially hard bite, and T’Challa made a noise that was almost pain. “I was so, _so_ angry with you,” Bucky told him, kissing the King with the fervour that even then was continuing to build and build until he was fit to burst. “You were destroying me.”

 

“And now?” T’Challa asked, and there was no fear in his gaze, nothing but a hunger that seared through Bucky, hot against cold. “ _Now_?” T’Challa repeated, reaching up to grab roughly at Bucky’s shoulders, his cheek. “What happens to those who threaten the Winter Soldier?” Bucky smiled, and pressed the palm of his hand down hard on T’Challa’s sternum. He thrust his hips down, eliciting another sharp noise from T’Challa. His kissed his King then, long and deep before pulling back mere millimetres, huffing a breath against T’Challa’s lips.

 

“They pay for it,” Bucky whispered. And T’Challa smiled.

 

-

 

“We do not do that enough,” T’Challa said, between heavy breaths, and Bucky barked out a rough laugh. He felt a million miles away from the timid creature he’d retreated into all those months ago.

 

“This is the first time we’ve done it,” Bucky pointed out. “Done it like _that_ , anyway.” His breathing was just as heavy. Satisfaction, dark and near _tangible_ satisfaction coiled low in his gut, and Bucky twisted onto his side to press his palm against T’Challa’s chest as it rose and fell. He pressed down harder, until he was hindering T’Challa’s deep breaths. He slid his hand up, brushing T’Challa’s nipples as he swept over his pecks, and coming to rest at his throat. Bucky hesitated, before pressing down again. Not hard enough to hurt.

 

Quite.

 

T’Challa watched him with an almost curious gaze.

 

“Would you?” he asked, and the weight of his tone sent another pleased shudder, deep and heavy through Bucky. After their heated exchanges before, it was not an unreasonable question to ask. Bucky’s hand slid down to T’Challa’s collarbone, and rested there, exerting no weight at all.

 

“Never,” Bucky told him quietly. “I love you.”

 

T’Challa moved his hand atop Bucky’s, lacing their fingers together. “I’m very glad to hear that,” he murmured. “On both counts.”

 

Bucky didn’t reply, and the minutes ticked by with T’Challa’s thumb sweeping across the back of Bucky’s hand, Bucky’s hand a warm weight against the King’s collarbone. Bucky didn’t want to break the bubble. Sad, that he had to break an even bigger one.

 

“I need to leave,” Bucky told T’Challa quietly, and T’Challa’s thumb stopped its sweeping motion for a moment, as Bucky’s fingers tightened their grip. “Wakanda. I need to be out there. All I remember of the world is from before the war, the missions I was sent on, and hiding in Bucharest. I need more, I need – I need all of it, T’Challa. I need to know my place in this world.” As T’Challa stayed quiet, Bucky continued to speak, trying to explain as well as he possibly could. “I don’t want to leave you,” Bucky stressed, body leaning towards T’Challa. “I don’t want to leave Wakanda. But I will lose everything if I stay.”

 

T’Challa’s fingers twitched and shifted, as T’Challa twisted his head to look at Bucky. “Lose yourself as I chip away at you?”

 

Bucky wanted to tell him that it wasn’t like that. But he didn’t want to lie either.

 

“It’s not your fault,” he settled on instead. “But I need more than this. I need everything they took from me.”

_(I need to accept what they made of me_.)

 

It wasn’t fair. Nothing in Bucky’s life had been especially fair, from poverty to being drafted, to becoming an experiment and a dead man and a weapon. To being framed for a murder he didn’t commit, when there were so many he had committed and never faced judgement for. Bucky was dragged out of his thoughts by T’Challa tapping his forehead with one long finger.

 

“I can hear your brain,” T’Challa told him, gentleness in his eyes. “Will that quiet when you leave?”

 

When. Bucky’s heart swelled. “Maybe,” he said, and licked his lip. “I hope so.” He ducked in to kiss T’Challa, energy behind the kiss rather than the desperation that usually flooded such an action from him. T’Challa returned it, sucking on his lower lip greedily.

 

“There will always be a place for you here,” T’Challa murmured when they parted, his fingers moving to curl around Bucky’s hand again. Bucky huffed a laugh.

 

“I should hope so,” he smiled in the dark, gripping T’Challa’s fingers back just as hard. “Otherwise it’ll be awkward when I come back and find you’ve rented out my room.”

 

-

 

Bucky flicked his wrist – new, shining, and smooth moving vibranium that it was. Symbols lit up circling it, and Bucky smiled. Shuri hadn’t given him his own set of kimoyo beads; he’d never wanted them in Wakanda, not when he barely went anywhere, and even then usually only with someone else. It had been clever of her to work their equivalent into the very fabric of his new arm. It was so much lighter than the phantom weight of the Red Room’s monstrosity, which still echoed in his mind long after it had been disconnected. Something of Shuri, to take with him. Vibranium, for protection. Kimoyo beads woven in to keep him connected to those who loved him. A war dog code, pressed into metal instead of flesh, so that when he was ready, he could go home.

 

-

 

_“This isn’t the end,” Bucky told T’Challa, pressing both hands, old and new, either side of the King’s face as he bent down to kiss him hard, pushing his lips apart to push his tongue inside as T’Challa met him eagerly. “I’m going to come back. I just – I need to know who I am, first.”_

_“Not just the Soldier,” T’Challa echoed Bucky back, reaching up to cup his face tenderly, “not just Bucky. Not just my love.” He smiled at that last one. “although you will, I think, always be my love whether you wish it or not.”_

_Heat flooded Bucky’s chest, and it didn’t burn away the soldier. Forged him, like steel._

_Purpose._

_Protection._

_A weapon to defend, not to attack._

_“I’ll come home to you,” Bucky smiled, and kissed T’Challa again, firm but tender as he rested his body over the King’s, letting his weight bear down on him. T’Challa made a pleased noise, and lifted his leg between Bucky’s._

_“If you do not, I will certainly find my way to you,” T’Challa told him, and Bucky laughed._

_“I hope you do that anyway,” Bucky said, almost shyly. “I’ve seen your planes. Easier for you to come visit me out there than for me to keep making return trips here.”_

_Easier to love T’Challa in a world that could be as much Bucky’s as his. Wakanda would be for Bucky as much as it was for T’Challa, one day. He hoped it would, anyway. But for now it was too much, and Bucky needed to find himself elsewhere._

_T’Challa and Bucky wind about each other, eyes closed, cozy and secure in their nest beneath the sheets. Past, present and future fade away. Bucky knows they will return, but this time he isn’t scared at the thought. He closes his eyes, safe besides his King._

_He dreams of tomorrow._


End file.
